Связь между гонщиком и командой в «Формуле 1» традиционно считается священным и не подлежит нарушению. Однако на Гран-при США на трассе в Остине команда «Альпин» намеренно сломала этот стандарт. Инженер по коммуникациям Роб Гулливер объяснил причину этого шага: «"The driver-engineer radio is the most sacred communication within the team,"»

«"It is the most important, it's the most controlled and it is the most policed. So for someone to come in and have free rein to talk to the driver is a big deal."»

Если вы не смотрели трансляцию «Скай Спортс» или не слушали международный фид с комментариями, то старт практики после финишного флага, вероятно, прошёл для вас как обычно. Но когда гонщики получили инструкции по выполнению этого важного, хотя и неприметного, этапа подготовки к уикенду, Пьер Гасли получил их из необычного источника.

«"Right, you're coming up to the grid in a few moments,"»

«"I want you to do one burnout, please, and you're going to start on the right-hand side. And when you're stationary, Strat 7 for your practice start. "»

«"You've done your homework, I see,"»

«" Ahead of the US GP weekend, Sky and Alpine collaborated on pulling off a live, two-way, on-track communication after FP1 had finished. Croft was patched into Alpine's driver radio channel, and conducted a short interview with Gasly answering a few questions after taking the chequered flag and travelling round to the grid. The above exchange - which was real, not performative, as Croft had to give Gasly the real start procedure instructions, which he called "»

«" - then followed. Gasly then gave a brief assessment of the practice start and briefly talked through the run to Turn 1, trying the inside line to scope out how bumpy it was there ahead of Sunday's actual race start, and the conversation had to be concluded around Turn 2 to leave Alpine and Gasly clear to manage the FIA's engine mode tests that were incorporated into the end of FP1. "»

«" Gasly joked to The Race. "»

«"I think people were surprised, and it had a positive effect."»

Всего эксперимент занял менее одного круга и около двух минут радиосвязи. Но он был завершён успешно, и новый взгляд на практику гонщика в «Формуле 1» был открыт.

«"I thought it was a really lovely moment,"»

«"I know it's been done in other series before, but F1 cars are way more complex, way more technical. "»

«"But we did want to bring as much as we possibly could to the viewers back home."»

«"It's a leap of faith that we're actually going to let someone else talk to the driver,"»

«"But here we've all taken the view that it's very low risk. We can cut it at any time and regain comms. "»

«"I was so nervous listening when I heard Crofty trying to talk to Pierre. I thought, 'Please make sure he answers, otherwise I'm in trouble!' "»

«" The idea was born from a conversation between Croft and Alpine's communications team, which Alpine racing director Dave Greenwood then got behind. He put it to Alpine's engineering team and Gasly himself - and nobody said no. "»

«"And it got me a bit of a break from the voice of my engineer!"»

«"The complex hardware, the routing of audio and everything behind it to make this one-minute chat possible was humongous,"»

«"It's an external input into the garage,"»

«"Our internet provider has access to Sky, and we get a cable from our internet provider to us. "»

«"From a garage perspective, everything internally, from the car to their external box, runs completely through our infrastructure and equipment. Sky are receiving the audio line. Everything else relies on Alpine's internal network and configuration."»

«"Back in 2020 we used to do driver of the day, where they spoke to who won that, so I looked back at some of the old logic we had,"»

«"That was one-directional, because FOM [Formula One Management] already get our feed, whereas Sky had to be bi-directional."»

«"It's a proper career highlight,"»

«"It's a bit like when mission control talks to the astronauts in space. You're pushing technology and pushing the boundaries. "»

«"You can't get any closer than speaking live in the cockpit."»

«"No, absolutely not! It still adds extra workload. "»

«"Hopefully one day there's quite a lot less and we have the extra time to have a little chat on our inlaps or outlaps. Not at the moment!"»

«"Would we love to do a formation lap? Of course,"»

«"Would we love to do a chat during a safety car? Of course we would. "»

«"Could we do it on a slowing-down lap after the race? Yes, but we get a lot of team radio and celebratory moments there."»

«"looking at where the risk factor is"»

«"Halfway through a session, when they're going through a plan to try to pick up performance, is probably not the best time,"»

«"But laps to the grid, formation laps, all those sorts of places, the stress is less and you know what you've got to do. That's especially true at the end of the session, where you've got that whole lap of driving round, which makes it low risk. "»

«"Pre-planning in certain scenarios would be great. Since it happened, multiple comms engineers up and down the paddock from other teams have told me this is really cool. "»

«"Watch this space. We'll see what we can come up with. "»

«"They did enjoy it, and that's the bit I'll take from this. We did something that surprised people, and they truly enjoyed the brief glimpse we gave them. "»

«"I'm sure there's more we can do."»